If the available videos and tunes are any indication, Monáe appears to be bringing pop music into the 21st century, shedding any cumbersome sense of niche or category as she does so. Although you can definitely hear the Outkast influence on the tune above, so far the material from Monae’s upcoming The ArchAndroid bends genres like they simply don’t exist. Just try to call this hip hop, or funk, or soul, or any of a million other things you’ll try to call it, and you will fail. And on top of her mind-blowing talent as a performer, Monae apparently is presenting this as a concept album, having generated the material while traveling through places like Moscow, Prague, Istanbul, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, citing as inspiration artists like Salvador Dalí, Walt Disney, OutKast, Stevie Wonder, Octavia Butler, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, and John Williams. Learn more from the press release on hiphoppress.com, or in this Billboard piece. I could’ve saved lot of words by just saying “Damn. Check this out”. My thoughts don’t do her talent justice.

The ArchAndroid is due for release May 18, 2010

And apparently “The ArchAndroid” isn’t just a concept CD, it’s an “EMOTION PICTURE” whose cast includes Big Boi of OutKast, poet Saul Williams, the band Of Montreal, Deep Cotton, and the Wondaland Arch Orchestra. Here’s the trailer:

While taking a look at the RIAA’s peculiar paranoia about Canadian pirates recently, we mentioned how Damian Kulash Jr. of the band OK Go had expressed his frustration about not being able to embed his own band’s YouTube videos because of EMI’s “Embedding disabled by request” deal in a NYT editorial. He sounded like a real rebel, sharing the straight dope about how stupid his own label was being about video sharing as promotion. Well, OK Go’s latest video, This Too Shall Pass is featured above, and is suspiciously embeddable. But none of the others – like the Here It Goes Again treadmill video that put them on the charts – are. Was this yet another Rube Goldbergian mechanism to get us to see their new video? If it was, it was brilliant. The video was streamed nearly a million times in the first two days it was available. OK Go was also ready with blooper reels, which adds to the fishiness of it all. But who cares. It’s a catchy tune, and the video is awesome. It was created by LA’s Syyn Labs over a month-and-a-half using a team of 50-60 people to build it. The band’s basic requirements were that it had to be built on a shoestring budget, not only synchronize with the beat and lyrics but play a part of the song, and end on time with it. Remember, this is 3 1/2 minutes with no cuts. Pretty impressive. Wired has more details about the engineering required if you’re interested.

I made the mistake back in 2003 of glossing over the band Muse because of their shameless Radiohead-ness. At the time, listening to Muse when Radiohead existed felt like listening to Coldplay when there’s a U2 around. Except I actually like Radiohead. All of which, in spite of being the perception of the music press in general, is incredibly unfair. In a way I’m glad I glossed over Muse like did, because after finally exhausting all the Radiohead in existence, it’s like there’s a back-catalogue to explore. Except when you finally give Muse a chance, you realize there are layers and layers and layers, and the comparison to Radiohead becomes incredibly inaccurate. My re-Muse-ment began when I saw the video for their new tune Uprising featured here (which seems, alas, to only be available at MTV.com. Apologies in advance for the commercials). In spite of the tune’s over-the-top “anthem for the common man” theme, I found myself nodding along with it, and ended up watching the video for Supermassive Black Hole from their 2006 release Black Holes And Revelations. I was sunk at this point, as I decided to dig back into my music collection. Starting with 2003′s Absolution, I almost wrote them off again. The first track – Apocalypse Please – is so Radiohead-esque that I was sure my resistance was legit. But I slowly realized it was actually just a good way to ease into their broader sound. By the time I got to Sing For Absolution, I was sunk. If you compared this tune to anything, I’d say it sounds like Freddie Mercury joined Depeche mode and got remixed by Trent Reznor. I’m not going to prattle on here, Muse has been written about plenty, but if, like me, you’ve written Muse off in the past, give them another spin. There’s a lot more there than Radiohead. And I’d add that if you’re going to listen to their stuff as crappy mp3′s on your iPod, DON’T BOTHER. Almost all their stuff demands the dynamic range that mp3′s simply don’t have. And it sounds best blasting out of your speakers at a volume that annoys the neighbors and renders conversation impossible.

After you buy the CD on Amazon….

Try to find me a copy of the limited edition box set for Christmas:

(Should I be disturbed that this video makes total sense to me?)

Visit their remarkably functional Flash site

]]> http://dissociatedpress.com/2009/08/new-release-from-swiss-band-yello-due-october-2-2009/feed/ 0 http://dissociatedpress.com/2009/07/80s-one-hit-wonders/ http://dissociatedpress.com/2009/07/80s-one-hit-wonders/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:01:21 +0000 admin http://dissociatedpress.com/?p=1178
At last, the “Official” video for
88 Lines About 44 Women.
Rather peculiar, and NGSFW*

I’d completely forgotten about the 80′s song “88 Lines About 44 Women” by The Nails until the other day when the “Official” video (also at left, NGSFW*) appeared on YouTube. I guess it isn’t so odd I’d forget about it; as much as I loved the song back then, I now remember clearly the drug-addled morning that I first heard it. I had just awakened in the San Francisco apartment of some woman I’d met the night before and she thought it really funny to play it under the circumstances. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if there were so many one-hit wonders in the 80′s simply because people were doing so many drugs that they couldn’t remember the bands’ names from release to release. I know that I, for one, remember very little of lasting value from the years 1983-1990, and given our hairstyles, clothing, and musical preferences, probably prefer it this way! But I thought it would be fun to try to recall – without using the Internet or VH-1 as a memory aid – a list of these tunes. By the way, compiling this list made me realize that there’s a previously un-named micro-genre in here somewhere that’s epitomized by tunes like Trio’s Da Da Da, The Flying Lizards’ Money (That’s What I Want), and The Nails’ song featured above. I hereby christen this genre “Clock Rock”. Remember me if that catches on. The list is below, feel free to share your own in the comments…

Artist	Song	Year	Links
Lipps, Inc.	Funkytown	1980	YouTube	Amazon
The Vapors	Turning Japanese	1980	YouTube	Amazon
Waitresses	I Know What Boys Like	1982	YouTube	Amazon
Wall of Voodoo	Mexican Radio	1982	YouTube	Amazon
Taco	Puttin’ on the Ritz	1983	YouTube	Amazon
Kajagoogoo	Too Shy	1983	YouTube	Amazon
Peter Schilling	Major Tom	1983	YouTube	Amazon
Dexy’s Midnight Runners	Come on Eileen	1983	YouTube	Amazon
After the Fire	Der Kommissar	1983	YouTube	Amazon
Nena	99 Luftballons	1984	YouTube	Amazon
Musical Youth	Pass The Dutchie	1984	YouTube	Amazon
Frankie Goes to Hollywood	Relax	1984	YouTube	Amazon
Godley & Creme	Cry	1985	YouTube	Amazon
Sly Fox	Let’s Go All the Way	1986	YouTube	Amazon
Timbuk 3	The Future’s So Bright	1986	YouTube	Amazon
Charlie Sexton	Beat’s So Lonely	1986	YouTube	Amazon
MARRS	Pump up the Volume	1988	YouTube	Amazon
Rob Base & D.J. EZ Rock	It Takes Two	1988	YouTube	Amazon
Modern English	I Melt With You	1989	YouTube	Amazon

You kind of had to be on drugs to dress like this:

*NGSFW = National Geographic Safe For Work

Whenever I feel like I’ve pretty much seen the Internet and am ready to cancel my membership, something charming comes along and reminds me what I’m doing here. Not too long ago it was Kutiman, the Israeli guy who took hundreds of amateur music tutorial videos from YouTube and mashed them up into amazingly listenable new music. This time it’s the Japanese band Sour, whose music is just some mellow, sparse, jazzy pop that sounds sort of like if a few Japanese guys studied at Berklee and couldn’t decide who they liked more, Chet Baker or Charlie Hunter. The video at left (for their song Hibi no Neiro) was produced completely using their fans, carefully choreographed on web cams to make a whimsical little video that perfectly matches the thoughtful but upbeat tune. They have a few other playful and clever videos on YouTube, including Omokage no saki which uses simple stop-animation, and Hangetsu, which uses some clever shadow puppetry. I was going to research them a little more and write about them, when I realized the bio information on their site summed it up perfectly:

In 2002 Spring, hoshijima (gut guitar/voice), Sohey (upright bass/bass), KENNNNN (drums/toys) got together after graduating their uni.

SOUR, is named after the alcoholic “confy” feeling with the “grumpy” or “cranky” sensitivity that the word itself has.

Having some time of struggle, they at last builded their own sounds in early 2004. Then in December 2005, after strong live shows their album “for my incongruity” didn’t need more than 3 months to sell out 250 copies at only ONE store in Tokyo.

In October 2006,their leading single “sad song” started digital delivery at Listen Japan. And their debut full album “rainbow under the over pass” was released in May 2007 from arights entertainment.

What could I possibly add to that?

When you’re Iggy Pop, you have to go to great lengths to surprise people. I mean, after being one of the first to pull your penis out on stage (I think Jim Morrison beat him to “the draw”), being credited with inventing the “stage dive”, and acquiring the moniker “Godfather of Punk”, what’s left? Well, Iggy came up with something. Just enter your Serge Gainsbourg-slash-Leonard Cohen phase at the age of 62 with a release like his new CD Préliminaires. I’ve been an off-and-on fan of Iggy since I was about 16, when his new album The Idiot was on heavy rotation at my house along with with Bowie’s Low. His energy and crazed persona were never what interested me; and half of his music really doesn’t do much for me. But that other half? Holy crap. He just goes places others don’t go, and occasionally brings back something we didn’t know we needed. And I’m reluctantly forced to admit that I’m enjoying what he’s done on this new release. Except that I’d like to strangle him for covering Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Insensatez”. Jesus Iggy, why? Just why? If you want to pick up a copy, there’s a limited edition package available (6,000 worldwide), as well as a regular CD and a digital download. They also have some amusing video clips of Iggy performing the new material in France on Iggy’s site. I wonder if the now legendary (and hilarious) tour rider is still in use? If you’d like to read more about Préliminaires, BlogCritics has a fairly even-handed review. And can someone tell me how you say “please put on a shirt” in French?

No really, Iggy. Put on a shirt.

I remember clearly when MTV was new. I was in a trendy band comprised of artists who dabbled in visual art, fashion and film, and we were incredibly excited about the possibilities. We of course were quickly disappointed as the medium turned into an endless string of “hair bands with hot chick videos”. To me, the marriage of music and moving images still remains a vastly under-explored territory; although there are many full length films brilliantly married to their music (Betty Blue and Paris, Texas remain a couple of faves), I’ve always been more intrigued with the idea of a shorter format (I’ve mentioned shorts before) that might allow a more abstract exploration of the possibilities. The other day a friend turned me on to the video at left, which is by Rob Dougan. It’s a stunning short film set to his theme Clubbed To Death, which will be familiar to many from the soundtrack of The Matrix. If you like it, check out the full CD, Furious Angels. It’s a great CD, but his Tom Waits-like vocal stylings seem to divide opinions. My friends who like Waits found it off-putting, and my friends who don’t like Waits enjoyed it. Go figure. In any case, I wish this were a more clearly defined medium; although there are collections like Pitchfork Media’s 100 Awesome Music Videos, it’s hard to find work like this in one place, and even that collection focuses on the standard pop song promotion format. I’d also be happy if the medium were more popular because I personally have a huge backlog of ambient and instrumental material I would love to market myself! I love this Sick of Dance Music interview with Dougan in The Guardian; it sums up a lot of how I feel about my own work. Especially the “dance music that you could never dance to” reference. I also identify with his indifference to his creation; although my music’s been used in a lot of commercial/industrial video and licensed for one film, I sometimes actually forget it exists (just check the last log in on that ambient link if you think I’m kidding). If you know of any nice clips like the one featured here, please share!